True believers
I appreciate your coverage of the battle going on for the hearts and minds of
children in the US in regard to the teaching (or otherwise) of evolution
(21 August, p 4).
However, I feel that your choice of words sometimes unwittingly
aids the forces of irrationality.
When you say some scientist “believes” the Sun captured a tenth planet, or
that another “believes” the retreat of the Antarctic ice sheet could continue,
you are no doubt using the word correctly. They hold these things to be true.
But you provide ammunition for the schemers who wish to put science on a par
with faith, since “believe” has two meanings.
In its recent Science and Creationism, the US National Academy of
Sciences addresses a similar lexical issue. According to the NAS, a “fact” is an
observation that has been confirmed so many times it is accepted as true. A
“theory” is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world
that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences and tested hypotheses. As the NAS
points out, the creationist argument that evolution should be taught “as a
theory, not as a fact” confuses the common use of these words with the
scientific use.
Such confusion of meaning is quite deliberate. No scientist would imagine, as
the creationists’ argument requires, that a theory (explanation) could turn into
a fact (observation) by the accumulation of evidence. But this point is not well
understood by the public, or the school boards.
Similarly, no scientist would believe (as a matter of faith) that apes and
humans share a common ancestor, though he or she might indeed hold that to be
true. The statements “scientists believe the Earth is 4 billion years old,” and
“creationists believe the Earth is 4 thousand years old” should have completely
different syllogistic as well as numerical values. Continued use of “believe” in
influential magazines such as yours blurs the distinction.
Patently old hat
I searched in vain for a hint of sarcasm in your reference to Microsoft’s
recent patent relating to home networking via mains cabling
(20 November, p 11).
People have been running data over mains power lines for years, if not
decades. At least two years ago, I worked in a large networking company on such
a method for delivering the Internet into homes via mains cabling, and devices
for communication within the home have been available for much longer.
The data rates might have improved to the stage where video and audio are now
feasible, but there’s nothing new or groundbreaking about this technology.
If anything, the only reference that should be made to this patent is to show
just how often patent offices are awarding patents for unoriginal, obvious
applications of current knowledge.
Networking via the mains is indeed an old idea. What we should have made
clear is that Microsoft’s patent claims a cheap way to do it. By separating
sound, video and data signals on widely spaced frequencies鈥攊nstead of
coding them all on one frequency鈥攖he firm says it could eradicate much of
the expensive filtering circuitry needed to extract the signals from the noisy
mains. What do other readers think of the quality of patents these
诲补测蝉?鈥抬诲
No utopias, please
Your correspondents argue the toss over whether or not prescription drugs
should be available over the counter
(30 October, p 56).
It is easy to dream up utopias brought about by wise laws. H. G. Wells, for
example, believed that society should be governed on scientific principles by a
group of experts. Alcohol and cigarettes in such a society would almost
certainly be banned, possibly to be replaced by far safer drugs such as
cannabis, thus reducing what Rob Colebrook calls the “phenomenal cost . . . of
easy access to tobacco and alcohol”.
It’s a nice thought-exercise. But in the real world, we know what happens.
Even the most enlightened scientific despotism would be spoilt by the flawed
humans who wielded the power.
What, then, should we think of the present law, which uses violence,
authoritarianism and patronising disregard for human rights, with no such
rational justification? What about its phenomenal cost?
Far from aiding science, the clumsy, wide-ranging restrictions placed on drug
use today make it harder to monitor side effects, often help distort information
because of the ideological bias of government sponsors, and certainly discourage
the search for superior alternatives to recreational drugs. The sooner we as a
society begin a serious, open discussion on this matter, the better.
Call that low?
The article on the effect of a low or moderate alcohol diet on healing liver
damage in rats contained an interesting comment: “. . . the rats on the
low-ethanol diet鈥攅quivalent to a person drinking two or three pints of
beer a day . . .”
(13 November, p 17).
If I could convince my wife that two to three pints of beer a day is a
low-alcohol diet, then I would be one very happy engineer.
Imagine, two pints of my favourite ale every day for therapeutic
purposes鈥攁h, bliss.
Wrong turn
The new Microsoft advert for MSN (Microsoft News) shows a
sad lonely worm which is chopped in half. In the advert both halves survive and
are happy together.
This is wrong, because only one half would survive, and only if cut behind
the saddle.
A little plant music
According to your feature, listening to Mozart boosts your brain power
(6 November, p 34).
Peripherally relevant to this is the alleged effect of music on
plants. I refer to a book titled Music, edited by Kathy Evans
(McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1993).
The second item in this music-related anthology of writings is listed in the
index as “A Spoonful of Music, by Janice Dineen (non-fiction)”. The article
commences by describing how each year a science teacher, Lorne Cook, gets his
students to set up an experiment in which different kinds of music are played to
groups of plants.
“The results are the same every year,” Dineen claims. “The plants with no
music continue to grow normally and maintain the same root systems they had at
the beginning of the experiment . . . The plants listening to classical music
grow at a 45掳 angle towards the speakers, and they develop very healthy root
systems with many more branches and hairs than a normal plant. The plants
listening to rock music either die or their growth is dramatically retarded.
Those that survive end up with poor, sparse root systems, Cook says.”
Dineen goes on to say, “The students go to great lengths to make sure the
lighting and watering conditions are identical for the three groups.”
Has this experiment been tried elsewhere?
Positive piercing
I see from your news story that body piercing is causing problems for the
medical profession
(30 October, p 15).
I think it’s only fair to draw your attention to a possible benefit.
While prowling through the American Journal of Obstetrics and
Gynecology (as one does), I came across a letter from a Dr Erik Scholten of
Leeds. He has been wondering how to treat mothers with inverted nipples, who
find breastfeeding difficult.
He says the solution is to pull their nipples out and pierce them with metal
rods, which can then be removed after breastfeeding begins鈥攐r not. He has
tried this successfully on two new mothers so far. Body piercing may have its
uses.
Techno squeeze
According to Technofile, “The accordion [is] not normally revered for its
technologically advanced design . . .”
(20 November, p 15)
Having just paid 拢1300 for a basic accordion, I am inclined to differ.
In addition to the normal steel reeds, the instrument has switches and
electronics to generate automatic harmonisation, and rhythm accompaniment
ranging from bossa nova to rock and roll. I am still studying the programming
manual.
I should add that I play the Continental A-system accordion, with six rows of
buttons on the treble side and seven rows of notes and chords on the bass. Such
an instrument requires about 600 individually tuned reeds, quite apart from the
electronics.
With this system, the basic 12 notes of the octave are arranged in a 4 脳 3
matrix, which is repeated up and along the keyboard. I can span three octaves
with my right hand, and play five-note chords over this range, or more by
putting a finger on two adjacent buttons. The musical interval between adjacent
buttons can range from one to three semitones.
The basic scale is crooked in this system, but on the other hand one can
change key with an appropriate shift in the X or Y direction on the keyboard and
use exactly the same fingering whatever the key鈥攁 blessing when the rugger
club starts off in C sharp.
Colonial insult
May I take issue with Feedback over the piece on redback spiders
(13 November)?
Overall, an interesting read about a remarkable creature (now
establishing in Japan as well as in Belgium), but sadly marred by the author’s
bias in the closing paragraph.
Quote: “Of course, the spiders, like many colonials . . .” According to my
copy of the Macquarie Dictionary, redback spiders are indigenous to
Australia, so that linking them to “many colonials” is both offensive and
incorrect. We ceased being colonials in 1901, although we do remain a
constitutional monarchy.
Conversion cost
Conversion problems between imperial and metric are not new and are not
restricted to NASA
(20 November, p 15).
As a student, I worked for an American oil company in London on an industrial
placement in 1986. In the first month I was given the task of checking the
design of a new refinery to be built. After the third week, I noticed that the
American engineers had calculated the piping and wiring lengths in feet, whereas
the London office was about to place an order assuming the lengths were metres.
The extra 48 kilometres, or 30 miles, of material would have cost a small
fortune.
Having spotted this and saved the company many millions, I was taken out to a
fancy restaurant in London. Shame they didn’t pay me a percentage of the saving
to boost my meagre student income.